Ukraine-Russia latest: UK Storm Shadow missiles used inside Russia for first time

Russian military bloggers have posted images purporting to show fragments of British-made Storm Shadow missiles fired by Ukraine into Russia’s Kursk region.

Both Bloomberg and the Financial Times cited an unnamed Western official as saying that Ukraine had fired the long-range missiles into Russian territory for the first time.

Downing Street declined to comment on the reports and said it would not comment on operational matters.

On the sidelines of the G20 summit, Sergei Lavrov said: “If long-range missiles are going to be applied from Ukraine into Russian territory, it will also mean that they are operated by American military experts and we will be taking this as a qualitatively new phase of the Western war against Russia and will react accordingly.”

Two former Royal Navy flagships, a frigate and 14 Chinook helicopters will be decommissioned in cost-saving measures announced by Britain’s defence secretary John Healey.

The savings, which Mr Healey blamed on the “dire inheritance” left by the Tories, will see assault ships HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark, which have both been flagships, decommissioned after having been effectively mothballed at a cost of £9m a year. The ageing frigate HMS Northumberland is beyond economic repair and will also be decommissioned.

The Army’s Watchkeeper drones, which cost around £5m each and have been in service for a decade but have been beset by problems and are effectively obsolete, will be grounded.

“For too long our soldiers, sailors, aviators have been stuck with old, outdated equipment because ministers wouldn’t make the difficult decommissioning decisions,” Mr Healey told MPs, who insisted he had “full backing from our service chiefs” as he added: “As technology advances at pace, we must move faster towards the future.”

“These decisions are set to save the MoD £150m over the next two years and up to £500m over five years, savings that will be retained in full in defence,” he said.

But Tories raised concerns about the impact of the decision on the Marines, and former defence committee chair Sir Julian Lewis warned the absence of the assault ships could encourage an enemy “to try something like the Falklands in the future”.

The German government has declined to explicitly support an EU proposal to issue defence bonds, as countries look for ways to increase defence spending and strengthen support for Ukraine.

Berlin has previously opposed the idea of joint EU borrowing to fund key investments in areas such as defence, frustrating politicians across Europe.

On Tuesday, foreign ministers from Poland, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the UK pledged to “strengthen Europe’s security and defence, using all levers available to us, including the economic and financing power of the European Union”.

Despite this, a German foreign ministry spokesperson appeared to play down the prospect of a change in policy.

Asked about the prospect of issuing Eurobonds for defence, the spokesperson said they did “not find any other aspects that you had in your question in the declaration”.

Germany’s embassy in Kyiv has remained open in a limited capacity and can still be contacted by German citizens in Ukraine, a foreign ministry official said on Wednesday.

“We are in constant contact with our colleagues on the ground so that we can take appropriate measures if the situation changes,” the official said.

The US shut its embassy in Kyiv on Wednesday after it received a “specific information of a potential significant air attack”.

Ukraine’s top spy agency has since said that Russia spread fake information about possible strikes in “massive information-psychological attack” – but it is not confirmed whether they were related.

Ukraine is believed to have used British-made Storm Shdaow long-range missiles inside Russia for the first time.

It comes days after Joe Biden gave the green light for Ukraine to use US-made long-range missiles to target Vlasimir Putin’s forces deep inside Russia, the first such missiles were used on Tuesday.

That opened the door for Britain to do the same, with the UK missiles relying on US targeting programmes.

The Ukranian military has fired a long-range Storm Shadow missile beyond Russia borders for the first time, according to reports.

The British-made missile, which Kyiv has so far been prohibited from using while it defends its territory against Putin’s invasion, was fired at Russia on Wednesday, Bloomberg cited an unnamed source as saying.

Meanwhile, images published by The Telegraph appear to show fragments of a Storm Shadow missile in Russia’s Kursk region.

The UK government has not yet commented.

Vladimir Putin has gifted dozens of animals – including a lion and two bears – to a zoo in North Korea, the latest in a series of gift exchanges as Russia relies on Pyongyang’s artillery and troops to bolster its invasion of Ukraine.

More than 70 animals, including an African lion and two brown bears, were sent by plane with veterinarians from Moscow’s zoo to be transferred to a zoo in Pyongyang.

The animals were “a gift from Vladimir Putin to the Korean people,” the Russian government said.

Steffie Banatvala reports:

Asian stocks were mostly lower on Tuesday, despite gains on Wall Street, as worries mounted over escalations in the Russia-Ukraine war.

U.S. futures edged higher while oil prices were little changed.

On Tuesday, Ukraine fired several American-supplied longer-range missiles into Russia, according to the official, marking the first such use in nearly 1,000 days of war. On the same day, Russian President Vladimir Putin formally lowered the threshold for Russia’s use of its nuclear weapons.